Enforcers of False Tourist Optimism: A Summer of High Traffic but Low Profits is Coming

Another all-Croatian competition in false optimism is heating up. State institutions, supported by compliant mainstream media, are counting every tourist at the border and telling fairy tales about yet another season that will be better than the record-breaking 2019. We witnessed a similar deception this summer, but a bit later because the pre-season was missed due to COVID.

HAC celebrates traffic jams on the roads. For Corpus Christi, 38,387 vehicles entered Lučko, which is 4.4 percent more than the record year of 2019. Zdravko Marić triumphantly announced that this tourist year could surpass 2019 because the value of fiscalized receipts related to tourism in the first five and a half months of this year is 22 percent higher compared to the record year of 2019. The Croatian Tourist Board equally optimistically reports that in May, there was a 178 percent increase in tourist arrivals and a 155 percent increase in overnight stays compared to last May. Statisticians are equally excited to publish similar data.

However, some things are being kept quiet. In the first quarter, 1.19 million passengers passed through Croatian airports, which is a staggering 26.4 percent less than in 2019. So, we gained 1,635 more vehicles for the Corpus Christi weekend, but in the first four months, we lost 427,000 air passengers. And in air traffic, there is global chaos due to staff shortages, and what will happen next – only heaven knows. The Minister of Finance knows well that a surplus of 22 percent in fiscalized kuna does not mean an increase in consumption. Inflation has shifted from creeping to galloping: 10.8 percent year-on-year, and 13 percent compared to May 2019. Some other categories, such as accommodation, have increased by 20 percent over three years, while the fuel consumed by that surplus of car tourists in May was 25 percent (gasoline) and 34 percent (diesel) more expensive.

Regarding the number of tourists, despite triple-digit growth in the first five months compared to last year, we are down 22.1 percent in arrivals and 11.5 percent in overnight stays compared to 2019. That is a shortfall of as much as 1.3 million overnight stays in five months.

Therefore, there have been fewer tourists so far than in 2019, and they have only paid more for the same goods or services, and certainly have not spent more. On the contrary! Every street vendor of beach trinkets will tell you that people just pass by the stand and buy less than ever. This should be added to the labor shortage, which is taking on dramatic proportions. A neighborhood café in southern Istria closes its doors as early as 2 PM because it cannot find a waiter or waitress for the evening shift even for an hourly wage of 50 kuna. For a similar reason, a winery in Pula has switched to working one shift (10 AM – 5 PM). In Podstrana, a person is being sought to bake and sell pancakes on the beach for 10,000 kuna…

All this shows that this tourist season – despite the usual enforcers of optimism – will indeed be financially record-breaking, but only due to price increases. This summer will be one of high traffic and low profits.